One by one China’s provincial governments are making radical transformations to the lives of residents by abolishing restrictions that made domestic migrants foreigners in their own country
Jiangxi went first, then Shandong, then Yichang city in central Hubei. .
“The benefits of the reform of the household registration system far outweigh the costs,” Zhao Junjie from the China Centre for Urban Development at the Chinese government’s National Development and Reform Commission said last week. . “So a quick resumption of resident consumption, rather than conventional investment stimulus, is conducive to the recovery of economic growth, and hukou reform has an important role to play.”
“Imagine if you had to travel to Canberra every time you needed to do your tax or access your pension,” says Johnston. “And then suddenly one day you could do it all online.” The changes are likely to be controversial. Decades of strict hukou regulations have meant that urban, middle-class Chinese have had their pick of the best schools, apartments and facilities in the cities. The same group of millions of middle-class educated workers are also those growing most frustrated at China’s cycle of lockdowns and closed borders. But as Xi pursues a policy of “common prosperity”, the costs may be starting to outweigh the benefits.
In Beijing, when the school term starts in September, migrant workers’ children are likely to be taking their place alongside the children of hukou residents for the first time. “This year there was no visibility of the enrolment process. There was no actual chance to get angry with the local education official or harass whomever - it was just all done online,” says Johnston.
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